To be or not to be (a furry)
17 August 2025
Recently I read a tumblr post that sparked some doubts in me. I mean, it's silly, it's just a random person's post on the internet, the kind of thing I would have normally paid no mind to, but for some reason it's kinda stuck with me; not in a bad way, necessarily, but just enough to tug at the thread of my thoughts.
This is not an exact quote (it's been a while), but the post went something like this: "I like animals, but I will not call or consider myself a furry. This is not me bashing on furries, but actually the opposite; the amount of commitment, dedication, craft and passion that they show is SO admirable to me, that even counting myself among them would be an insult to the furry community."
Now, I don't know about you guys; as of this moment I recognize a few things I don't exactly subscribe to about this statement, but the first time I read it, I kind of thought "hm... maybe this person has a point?" The question about whether or not one is or isn't a furry is, I would dare say, perhaps comparable to other questions of identity (such as, for example, sexual orientation). With this I don't mean to say that being a furry is the same as like, being gay; of course sexual orientation has different implications from what is, in essence, a fandom (a special fandom, but a fandom nevertheless). What I DO mean to say is that, in many ways, the question has to do with community and whether or not one belongs inside it. This becomes a very tricky question when you're just starting to figure yourself out, and who your friends are, and where you're happy, especially on today's internet, where people are hardly earnest about the stuff they enjoy unless it's somehow marketable.
When I was making the graphics and art for this blog, I thought it would be fun to have it be themed around my fursona, the little penguin you see everywhere! And it was a little weird, because I really felt like I was actually invested in making art of my fursona for the FIRST TIME. I've had my own fursona for more than a decade now, but I have drawn her more times in the last couple of days than I had EVER drawn her in those 10+ years. It sounds a little funny, but this actually got me thinking about whether that tumblr post applies to me. I felt a little like an imposter, if that makes sense.
You need to understand, my contact with the furry community has always been vicarious. I've never really had furry friends (not until very recently, at least). Everything I knew about being a furry was from an outside perspective (mostly the broadest stereotypes and more "texbook" stuff), but I have never really participated or engaged with the furry community in any meaningful way, aside from the occasional art commission. The first time I made myself a fursona, it was honestly because I felt like I "had" to, somehow, like that was a necessary rite of passage. In some ways, I guess it is? Because I'm always so proper about everything I do, and because I like all animals, what I actually did was complete a few of those "What animal are you?" online tests. One of the test results I got was penguin, and as a teenager, the explanation they provided kinda got to me? It said something about a penguin's whole existance being surprising to people, with how they're birds that cannot fly, but instead they swim like no other bird does. It said something about being a little two-faced (because of their elegant black and white coloring), about showing different "sides" of themselves to different people. Something about being good actors. Something about, I dunno, being little loveable freaks. Gosh, at the time I had no idea I was autistic, but BOY did that all hit straight into my core, being an undiagnosed autistic girl who had to constantly mask for a huge family of spanish social butterflies.
Anyway, I sort of just went "okay, yeah! I'm a penguin", and drew a penguin for myself. I was looking through my old fursona designs, and it's super interesting to me how, for starters, she actually looks like a rockhopper penguin. She also has tattoos and makeup, has a sort of edgy rock star look to her. It's honestly really cool looking, and really endearing to me now, but also I noticed, that wasn't really me. It's never been me, to be honest, it was kind of a collection of features that I thought were cool. In reality, I have never really had interest in tattoos (face/body paint and makeup has also always felt icky to me). Anyway, after that first design, I kinda just... never really drew her again. For a time, her design changed into being a flying fox (there was no deep meaningful reason for this change, other than the fact that I was obsessed with flying foxes at the time), and then a few years ago, I made myself a Furaffinity account and that alone kind of peer-pressured me into redesigning her again, one more time. I decided to go back to the penguin, because I still felt that the penguin was very close to my heart, but this time her design was notoriously more "tame", and actually looked like me. I even decided to give her my hairstyle, instead of the signature rockhopper yellow feathers (I am a brunette). For cohesiveness, I actually decided to make all her feathers brown. And then... I stopped drawing her again. Which brings us to today, and this website's brand new art, and my sudden surge of imposter syndrome.
It's not that I suddenly don't think I'm a furry anymore. Nothing further from that. I actually openly introduce myself as a furry to anyone who asks. It's just that... this has happened before, when I wondered if being asexual really qualified as being LGBTQ, or if I, as a person, qualified. It's that "community" aspect of it. I grew up in a small rural town in Spain. There was no "LGBTQ community" to join there. There was no "fandom" there, either. I had no "furry" models to emulate. While I was learning english, browsing the internet for that kind of stuff would often pose language barriers as well. The first time I went to an actual convention and was able to meet actual freaks was when I moved to Madrid for university. The first time I went to a pride parade was THIS YEAR. I have never (and still don't) have the money, time or patience to make myself a fursuit. Actually, fursuiting and cosplay in general has always been intimidating to me (amazing, but intimidating). I feel more comfortable focusing on drawing. To this day, I still don't really know what exactly makes someone a fully fledged furry. Is there a quota to fill? Do I need to be part of a furry chat group or forum? Do I need a fursona? Do I need to have a fursuit, and to wear it? Where would I wear it, even? I barely have access to furry events. Do I just need to feel it in my heart, or is that pretentious?
I think maybe there's a cultural element to it as well. Actually, I pretty much only have these doubts when I'm speaking to an american audience, or like, to strangers on the internet. In Spain, among my spanish friends, I feel 100% like a furry. Nobody is a bigger freak than me, because the concept of "animal mascots" itself feels a little foreign to us. American culture, especially with regards to sports, is REALLY big on mascots, it's not considered strange (maybe a little ridiculous, but perfectly normal in context), so the baseline for strangeness that americans are working with is different, if that makes sense. And there's a real fear of being a "poser" sometimes there, because I can see how nowadays, fandom has become so commonplace among the general public that people are forgetting what it is to be a REAL freak. If there was a way to say I'm like, a "casual furry" and I'm just having fun, but that you should not be looking at my behavior as a perfect, model example for furry culture, I would say it. I don't know. I might be overthinking again.
I've felt the same way for a while about being catholic. Again, not the same thing, but also a similar feeling with regards to "belonging in a community" and "having a quota" to fill. I AM catholic, I was raised catholic, I feel this in my heart and mind and body, all my role models during my life have been pillars in my catholic community, and my personal goals, behavior and philosophy are laced with catholic ideals. However, I have also felt like an imposter when I preach about my experience of God, knowing that I myself have not attended church in a long time, and in fact often feel most comfortable attending only when I visit my hometown. I truly feel like a "church poser", especially because I know, deep down, there is no catholic faith without community. In a similar way, I keep wondering if there is a way to be furry without the community. It is probably inconceivable.
I guess, like most things in life, there is no definitive answer. Personally, I will keep waving my furry flag in my own country, and I will keep having fun and hanging around people who get me and accept me. Whether there's a "furry" tag attached to me or not is secondary.
If you got this far, thank you so much for indulging my ramblings. Below, I will tell you some fun trivia details about my penguin fursona (I just made most of them up today, but MAN it's so fun to think of cool stuff without further intent, am I right?)
